Why do people live in Australia?

The continent has most of the world's most poisonous snakes, not only on land but in the ocean. It has the world's largest crocodiles, and one can be devoured by one in or near the ocean or a river, and then out in the surf great white sharks abound. And I haven't even mentioned box jellyfish, blue ring octopi, stone fish, or the red backed and funnel spiders.

If ever a land was saying "Go away, people," it's Australia.

Add to all this that Sydney, strangely, is one of the most expensive cities on Earth and that you're so far from the United States (where everyone wants to go) and why would anyone live there, much less WANT to live there?

So, why are there people in Australia? What explains it?

Yes, and of course I'm being tongue in cheek. I'm sure there are many reasons to risk the many ways to die there.

Replies to This Discussion

I wouldn't count on anything on page 7 yesterday to be there today or tomorrow as people add comments and also it may depend on the standard font and font size their computer is using to display text.

Anyway, this is a rough and tumble place. Not always for the faint-hearted or thin-skinned. You might as well get used to it now. But it's not serious most of the time. One exception is people who come here promoting religion or pseudo-science. This place is wall-to-wall skeptics and a lot of us have little patience for nonsense.

You don't strike ma as one of those, but you'll undoubtedly find yourself being corrected from time to time. It's a continual dialectic.

OK so as long as the subject is (sometimes) Oz here, maybe an Aussie can 'splain this one.

As I understand it, "pommie" came from "POME" which stands for "Prisoner of Mother England". In other words, it's a label that makes sense for the first (white) Australians, and I doubt it was complimentary.

So why do Aussies call Brits "pommies" instead of the other way around?

I also thought it came from the practice of carrying barrels of apples on ships (particularly Royal Navy) but some quick searches have shown that to be quite out of the running as to theories. Nothing better than finding out one was wrong while retaining one's dignity. (VBG)

@Brendan - I tend to write Pom or Pomme but when speaking say English or Brit - I use Pom as a term of respect - an Australian can say, usually blokes, if they haven't seen a friend for a while, and he is English, will say "Hey, you old Pomme bastard, where have you been?'. We enjoy our convict heritage - took guts to survive.

Lots of theories where it started. We are friendly rivals, apparently especially in Cricket. Both sides take it very seriously, and rib each other.

Both Aussies and New Zealanders don't take themselves too seriously, and groups of blokes will always rib each other, all in good humour.

The Pommes call us Feral and Bogans, which is quite true. We take the 'Mickey' and have a show called Upper Middle Bogans on air at the moment.

The Pommes have the best comedians and Atheists, the New zealanders have balls, Gay marriage, and won't allow American Nuclear warships into their harbours. At the moment we have the US marines in Darwin.

US army are often here, with the Australian army, running around the bush together.

We are anarchistic and irreverent - the following is The Chaser Boys, on a government channel. They are always getting into trouble, and this is one of their best - a comedy team that got into a spot of bother -